23rd District, Position 1: Stephens challenges incumbent Appleton

The incumbent in the race for the 23rd District House, Position 1 seat said her experience advocating for Kitsap values is the biggest reason to return her to office. Her challenger promises voters he will restore individual rights.

Rep. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo, said she's well-versed in the district's issues after serving for eight years on the Poulsbo City Council and another eight as state representative.

Her opponent, first-time candidate Republican Tony Stephens, said he wants to restore individual rights back to property owners, relax small-business regulations and use the money generated from the private business to "answer most of (the state's) budget woes." He's an Army veteran who currently works for Naval Base Kitsap.

TOP PRIORITIES

Stephens said he'd work with legislators from all political parties to abolish laws that he says threaten individual liberty.

He said he would work to get rid of the Department of Ecology and repeal the Growth Management Act of 1990 and Shoreline Management Act of 1971.

Believing "governments exist to protect individual rights," Stephens said laws that require landowners to give up their land for environmental reasons should be eliminated.

"None of (the laws) have to do with environmentalism but with individual rights," Stephens said.

For instance, he said, land protected under the Shoreline Management Act unjustly takes from private property owners without giving them monetary compensation.

Appleton said high on her to-do list if she's elected is legislation that would give newly discharged veterans immediate in-state residency so they can attend state colleges and universities at resident tuition rates.

"I think we owe (military men and women) as much as we can provide and if they want to go to college, then I think the least we can do is give them in-state rates," she said.

To receive resident tuition rates, students must reside in the state of where the college is for a year, according to state law.

She'd also like to find money in the state's capital budget for a new home for Fishline, the North Kitsap food bank. The food bank needs more room than its current home on Third Avenue in Poulsbo offers, according to Fishline staff.

Finding funding for the state's ferry and education systems are among the most pressing issues, according to both candidates.

Appleton believes tax reform to fund schools is inevitable, "unless we completely gut human services and health care," while Stephens, who is also a Poulsbo resident, thinks that the Legislature should not consider any other bill until education is properly funded, "using the entirety of the state's budget," if it's required.

STATEWIDE ISSUES

Appleton plans to continue her efforts to put a 36 percent interest rate cap on loans from payday lenders, who currently can charge an interest rate up to 371 percent on short-term loans. It's an issue she's been advocating for since 2007, when she introduced bills to lower the interest rates on payday loans for military and nonmilitary borrowers. The military cap was approved by Congress.

"I would like to see it at a 36 percent, which is still usury, but mirrors what the federal government has put in place for the military," she said. "There should not be two distinct levels of borrower(s)."

She'd also like to push for legislation to get first-time nonviolent drug offenders treatment rather than prison, which she says will save the state money while alleviating the burden on court systems.

Stephens wants to reprioritize how the state funds certain programs. He said he would work to put education first, then "arm wrestle" over the priorities of government. After funding priorities are shifted, he said, items that are low priority would be nixed.

One specific issue Stephens would like to pursue is funding services for developmentally disabled residents. He said that's more important than investing in sports stadiums and new departments for colleges.

If elected, he said, he would not waste time proposing bills he calls unnecessary, citing bills Appleton filed or co-sponsored in 2011 that included reducing the cost of spaying cats and requiring drivers to turn on their headlights when they were operating windshield wipers.

"Not one drop of toner ink should be wasted on nanny-state nonsense such as that, while these poor people languish," he said.

FUNDING STATE PARKS

With proceeds from the Discover Pass falling short, lawmakers will have to figure out how to make up for a revenue shortfall for the state's parks.

Lawmakers predicted the parking pass would raise $64 million, but current numbers show sales are failing short, raising about $13.1 million.

Stephens said the parking pass was a bad idea to begin with.

"The Discover Pass was an example of the mindset of elitists," he said. "They think the only way to afford more government is to increase taxes and fees."

Funding the state's park system will be possible only when structural changes are made to the state's funding priorities, he said.

The state's budget problems were a result of spending "$1.41 for each additional dollar," Stephens said.

Appleton said the answer is investigating why the Discover Pass is not working.

"Doing away with the Discover Pass is not the answer," she said. Lawmakers need to continue working out a formula that works. She pointed to a change passed last session that allowed more than one car to use the parking pass.

Reducing the parking pass price might be one way to generate more sales, she said.